The Living Machine essays

The Living Machine essays We live in an extraordinary era of exploration. We are now able to reach far out into space and deep down into the ocean. We have the advantage with technology such as computers and satellites. We can now simply understand the dynamic forces that shape our Earth. Our Earth is constantly destructing and recreating. It balances through a continuous rebirth cycle. The Earths dynamic shape can be summed up very simply-Transfer Of Energy. This "Big Idea" helps to explain many things such as plate tectonics, ocean floor spreading, continental drift, volcanoes, earthquakes, just about everything that happens naturally on earth. Plate Tectonics links together Alfred Wegeners theory of continental drift and Harry Hesss theory of ocean floor spreading. Alfred Wegener was a German meteorologist living in the first half of this century. He thought that long, long ago at one time all of the continents had been joined together as one gigantic land mass he called Pangaea. Finally after a long period of time the huge land mass had broken apart and slowly became what it is today and was believed to be still changing. Many scientists did not accept Wegeners theory, but he kept on collecting evidence to support it. Finally, fossils of the same organism on many different continents were found. This helped to support his idea even more then fitting the continents together like a puzzle. Glossopteris fossils, which are found in rocks, were found in South America, Australia, India, and Antarctica. These organisms were too large to be carried continent to continent by wind and were not tough enough to survive a trip across the ocean. This made scientist confused. One of the clearest sets of evidence is found in the rocks of Africa an d South America. The rock formations in Africa lined up with matching ones in South America. Several years after Wegener had died, the theory of Contine ...